GuySuCo workers were yesterday paid their outstanding wages for last week.
Komal Chand, President of GAWU, the main union responsible for sugar workers, said that the workers at the various estates were paid yesterday.
When contacted last evening, Chand said that while there had been some delay in the payments at some estates, the corporation appeared to have fulfilled its obligations to the workers.
According to GuySuCo’s Communications Officer Romel Roopnarine the wages paid out were in excess of $300 million. He disclosed that over the last days, the company has been collecting as much money as it could from its customers, including seeking payment from some customers even before the due date for their payments.
Late Thursday evening, the corporation issued a statement saying it would not be able to pay workers the following day as per normal owing to cash flow problems. The delay in the arrival of a sugar vessel was cited as a main contributory factor for this.
The corporation, however, promised to pay the workers by yesterday, after apparently being able to raise enough funds.
Questioned about measures being put in place by GuySuCo to prevent such a reoccurrence, Roopnarine admitted that these were challenging times for the company. He said that until shipments commence, “the rest of the year and early 2010…is going to be very tough”.
Roopnarine said the company’s Chief Executive Errol Hanoman has indicated plans by the corporation to explore “a number of initiatives, including a crop financing facility some time in January”. Roopnarine, however, did not elaborate on this.
However, GuySuCo’s management feels that “borrowing should only be of a bridging nature” and that the solution to the industry’s problem is “to fast track the Turnaround Plan initiatives.”
